This is a long shot but I have always wondered about this, so no harm in asking. My grandfather's family left Scotland in the early 1900's. Half went to Canada and half to NY. He went to NY but joined the Canadian Army for WWI. My grandmother moved to Canada also. I have his Canadian military records. They returned to the USA after the war. My parents were born in the USA. I was born in the USA in 1957. We all lived in the USA, along the Canadian border. Did my grandfather become a Canadian citizen when he joined the Canadian Army? Am I eligible for Canadian citizenship by descent? (I would actually wish to get dual citizenship.) Thank you!
military citizenship by descent
- Thread starter narsuine
- Start date
In order to join the Canadian Army Forces (CAF), you must be a Canadian Citizen. There's no other way around it. So judging by this premise, I would expect your grandfather to have had acquired Canadian Citizenship at some point prior to joining the CAF. That being said, a foreign-born child to a Canadian Citizen (your US father) are Canadian Citizens by descent. However, this does not apply to the second generation foreign-born grandchild (your case).
Therefore, you would most likely have to go through immigration (lawful permanent resident) and later become a naturalized Canadian Citizen if you are interested in moving to Canada.
Therefore, you would most likely have to go through immigration (lawful permanent resident) and later become a naturalized Canadian Citizen if you are interested in moving to Canada.
TY for your response. I thought that I might qualify because of 2nd generation descent which was in place until 2009 (I think), and my situation was in place in 2009.
Canadian citizenship (no longer British subjects) only came into effect in 1946. There was no Canadian Armed Foreces in World War I as Canadians were British subjects. Thousands of Americans joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). There was even an American unit of the CEF because the US didn’t join the war until later. They didn’t have to give up their citizenship to join. So your grandfather didn’t have to renounce his citizenship. If he did, he would have become a British citizen, not Canadian was your grandfather born in Scotland, if so he already was a British citizen so joining the CEF would not have been an issue.
Here is a good article on Americans fighting in the CEF.
https://activehistory.ca/2015/02/an-american-legion-in-the-cef-crossing-borders-during-canadas-first-world-war/
Here is a good article on Americans fighting in the CEF.
https://activehistory.ca/2015/02/an-american-legion-in-the-cef-crossing-borders-during-canadas-first-world-war/
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You can apply to search Canadian citizenship records to determine if your grandfather became a citizen.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/proof-citizenship/search-records.html
You can also take a quiz “Am I a Canadian?”
https://na1se.voxco.com/SE/56/amicanadiansuisjecanadien/?lang=en&tui=auto
The chance that the OP's grandfather became a Canadian citizen is highly remote, given that World War I ended in 1918, and true Canadian citizenship began in 1947 as @Naturgrl mentioned. Under the 1947 Act, a British subject became a Canadian citizen only if they had maintained a residence in Canada for five out of six years prior; since the OP mentioned that his grandparents returned to the US at the end of the war, that's a large gap of 28 years. The only provision regarding military service is that the time served can be counted towards the residency; there is no mention of a special citizenship conferment for serving.
If a person was eligible for citizenship by descent before 2009, regardless of what generation he/she is, that eligibility was not revoked in 2009, and that person would still be eligible today. Unfortunately, I don't believe you were ever eligible because your grandfather did not become a Canadian citizen in 1947 (as mentioned in my previous post), resulting in your parent not being a Canadian citizen in 1947, which then means that you were not eligible for citizenship by descent.
Even if your grandfather and parent became retroactive citizens under the 2015 Act by restoration, the exception for the first generation limit would not benefit you, as it required that your parent needed to have been born during the time your grandfather was actively serving, and not just based on that fact that he served.